Happy CRNA Week 2024   A lot has happened The last two months I moved to San Diego Oh what joyous fun   A lot of changes  for my family and for me New preschool, grandparent help, New workplace   A lot of things to learn “Reprogramming” I’d like to say Each NORA (Non-Operating Room Anesthesia) location Different than the next   A lot of new people More than double the CRNA staff Plus anesthesia residents and attendings So many new names to learn   A lot of new equipment And locations of the equipment And drugs. Where is it? Where is it? Ah, it is over there   ..read more

Every year in January, we celebrate CRNA week. Most people don’t even know we exist, what we do, or what we are capable of. Let me illustrate a story of how we make a difference everyday and the importance of the previous anesthetic record. Last week, I encounter a patient that I’ve taken care of twice before (how likely is it amongst 30 CRNAs at the hospital that I get to take care of him 3 times in a row?). I was able to connect with this person and spouse quickly and go over the previous anesthetic record. Since I remembered how it took much longer from him to recover from anesthesia, I ad ..read more

Breakfast was oatmeal, goji berry tea, and a tea that helps with getting rid of lochia. We waited until 4 days postpartum to start the red blood cell production and decreasing anemia first. This tea is taken for 7 days daily. For lunch, I had leftover soup from last night and added pork in. For dinner, I had pork, eggs, bok choy, noodles and goji berries soup. I started to feel more weak today compared for the first couple of days. I am resting quite a bit and I have to thank my mom mostly for making all this delicious food. This one month postpartum period is an important time for healing. W ..read more

For breakfast, I had oatmeal again. There are berries, nuts, apples and banana. Great for milk production. There’s also a goji berry tea. For lunch, I had a soup. It’s made with lotus root… 山藥 (shen yao) translated as yam but it’s not the same as a sweet potato. Sparerib soup with red dates and seaweed. For dinner, we used the same soup base and added lamb, tofu, and udon noodles. The post My One Month Postpartum Recovery Photo Journal: Day 2 appeared first on Nurse Jess ..read more

Dear journal, I haven’t updated this website in a long time. Earlier this year, I got pregnant with my second child and I just had him a couple days ago. The labor and delivery took 12 hours from when my water broke and I had such a wonderful team of midwives and nurses to help me through the process. From my first birth, I wanted to write about my first month’s postpartum recovery period where my mom prepared intentionally selected foods to help with recovery. A lot of things I never knew and thought it would be interesting to share. I plan to show pictures and the rationale for the foods I e ..read more

Happy CRNA Week 2022 It’s 2022 and we are entering our third year of the pandemic. Omicron is ravaging the country. In Michigan, it’s currently plateaued at 1600 new cases a day. At my hospital, we haven’t completely stopped surgical cases. We are canceling cases due to the nursing shortage. There aren’t enough nurses to watch the patients after surgery overnight. There aren’t enough nurses to monitor patients in the ER, med-surg, ICU and PACU. There are overtime mandatory hours. Nurses are asked to work 20 out of 24 hours. How can that possibly be safe? Is it simply getting out of hand. What ..read more

This last 8 months of 2021 has been difficult, polarizing, and changing. At the beginning of this year, I got the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and thought everyone would eventually get on board with getting the vaccine and ready to cull the pandemic to its end. People were going across state lines where less people were getting the vaccine. The rush to vaccinate began in the USA. Then I heard chatter amongst my colleagues. People were scared to get the vaccine. A lot of misinformation was and is still out there. They hear about the cases where people got bad side effects. They weren’t going to chan ..read more

Disclosure: I share some affiliate links below of products that I personally use. If you purchase I may earn a commission. I only share products that I really enjoy using and hope that it’ll help you too. First of all, happy CRNA Week. Today I’d like to talk about how to have a happy pumping CRNA. Before I became a first time mom, I really had no idea what breastfeeding and pumping entailed. It’s not really talked about anywhere online especially regarding those working in healthcare and how they managed to work and pump. Now that’s been more than 8 months, I’d like to share my experience to ..read more

It’s been one week since I received the second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. I didn’t feel as fatigued compared to the first shot. However, the injection site became red, swollen, hard, warm, itchy, and painful starting on the second day. On Day 4 after the 2nd Pfizer Vaccination Shot It peaked on the 4th day where you could see red streaks and it got to be about 2 inches in diameter. After work, I went to my primary care physician to have her take a look at it. She said it was unlikely to be cellulitis since they clean off the site with an alcohol pad and used a clean needle. She said it looked mo ..read more

I’m so glad that it is the new year and that 2020 is over. We have two approved, highly effective COVID-19 vaccines and vaccinations are on their way. Next week I’m getting the second of two vaccine shots. I felt fine the first day besides a little arm soreness. The second day I felt fatigue, a slight headache and my arm was still sore. By the third day I felt much better. Since then (2 weeks now), I’ve felt fine. It was a tough decision especially since I’m still breastfeeding and there were no clinical studies on that population yet. While there is unknown data for nursing women for this vac ..read more